More on French Revival
Oh here we go a-blogging amid the airport so green . . .
On my way again - to Chicago and then Bavaria.
But before I leave, I thought I'd use this time to share a bit more about the Catholic revival in France.
One thing became obvious as I read:
The revival didn't happen because of the 35 years of religious war. The endless violence, and more Catholic than thou Holy League's reign of terror in Paris (where they were known to arrest Catholics at Mass at Notre Dame for not being Catholic enough) only showed the spiritual bankruptcy of Catholicism-as-tribe and Catholicism-as-political/military-movement. Neither of them were capable of responding adequately to the challenges of the day.
Two to four million French man and women died in those conflicts and 20% of the population of Paris died because of the siege of 1590. The first generation of reformers were nearly all children or students during the civil wars years. Though most of them were not active participants in the civil war, they were deeply marked by their parent's experience of it and the atmosphere it created. When a tentative peace was restored under a Protestant-turned-Catholic king and the Edict of Nantes, the new stability included a permanent Protestant minority. The whole experience moved them from looking at the emergence of Protestantism as the cause of all of France's problems and starting to understand it as a symptom.
It was when the reformers turned to considering their own sins and failure and the failures of the larger French Church, and they turned to confession, penance, and a life of serious, disciplined devotion and mission (which was the 17th century language for "intentional discipleship) that the revival began. And this revival was anything but nostalgic. The Catholic Reformation was successful and regained much of the ground that had been lost because it produced a tidal wave of widespread spiritual, evangelical, and pastoral reforms and innovations that we now think of as essential Catholicism.
Deeply faithful to Christ, to the Tradition, to the Church and profoundly innovative and future-oriented as well. The fact that the Vatican Council (II) happened in a time of peace and apparent institutional strength has distorted our perspective. We keep projecting our concerns back on the Council of Trent and the early modern Catholic Church and they were not at all the same. Their backs were against the wall. They knew that reform and change was imperative. In that situation, there was no talk of hermeneutics of continuity.
All kinds of long-standing practices and "traditions" were suppressed as part of that renewal - liturgical, pastoral, disciplinary - and that was necessary but the heart and soul of the revival was the love-inspired creativity of heroic figures like Frances de Sales, Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marrilac, etc.
My plane is boarding. Got to go. God bless!
posted by Sherry W @ 5:27 AM
15 Comments
15 Comments:
You are going to write an essay or book about all this in greater detail, right? What did that creativity look like, how was the tradition plumbed and reformed, etc. etc. ... :) G
Somewhere on my bookshelf is a reference to the percentage of French women who were nuns pre Revolution and post. In the late 18th Century one in seven were nuns. Sigrid Undset [firebrand Catholic convert and 1928 Nobel Laureate] had no hesitation in heaping much of the blame for Reformation abuses squarely at Luther’s feet – especially the oppression of women which led inexorably from that to radical women’s lib. In a public dispute with Lutheran Archbishop Nathan Soderblom in 1927, Undset accused Luther’s spiritual constitution of once again driving women under male domination, which from the time of Pentecost; Catholicism had progressively freed them from. Undset bluntly referred to it as depriving women (by closing convents) of any other role except working in the bedroom, the nursery or the kitchen. So yes Sherry, that post on the French Catholic revival of the 18th Century is very good, highlighting as it does that the Lutheran Protestant Reformation was not so much the cause of things going sour but a symptom of a reaction to what was happening in the Church – Sin! At the highest levels.
Cheers
Stephen Sparrow
I meant to say that by 1815 one in four French women were nuns. An enormous increase in only thirty years.
Cheers
Stephen Sparrow
Hi Stephen:
That's very interesting about Undset - I didn't know that about but not unlike what Lady Antonia Fraser's comments about the status of women after the Reformation in England in {"The Weaker Sex". A century later, they were less educated, less respected, and had fewer alternatives (she has a whole chapter that deals with the longings of some women that there was a Protestant equivalent of religious orders for women).
The closing of the monasteries was *Not* a good thing for women even by secular standards. While women played a huge role in the French Catholic revival and nearly 50 new women's communities were founded in the first 50 years of the 17th century in Parish alone!
Hi Sherry, that about the Undset Soderblom exchange is contained in a 1992 Ignatius book on Undset entitled "Sigrid Undset: On Saints & Sinners" You should definitely try to get hold of it although 2nd hand it is not cheap. I don't know if you've read Undset's medieval novel Kristin Lavransdatter (Christine Daughter of Laurence) but all of Undset's orthodox Catholic theology shines through in it. I've now read it five times - yes all 1125 pages but the 1990s Tiina Nunnally Engilsh translation is the one to use. Undset wrote KL before her conversion to Catholicism - it's like reading Grand Opera - at times I wanted to stop reading certain passages and applaud.
Cheers
Steve Sparrow
Steve:
I discovered KL in high school and have read it many times - 10? 12? I even sent out a Sigrid Undset Christmas card one year.
Love her.
Kindred spirits eh Sherry;-) You were blest to discover Undset in high school - I never discovered her until my mid fifties - still better late than never. Yes I liked the Archer translation with its King James Bible style English but that later translation is certainly smooth and quicker for me to absorb. I reckon Undset is the female equivalent of St Paul. Now if we could just get more and more folk to restrict their fiction reading to Flannery O'Connor and Sigrid Undset [instead of the newspaper] it wouldn't be long before the world would become a much better place, and you Sherry could take a well deserved and lengthy vacation.
Cheers
Steve Sparrow
Which traditions were suppressed? And are you talking about Berullian spirituality?
Steven Florent
I, too, am a great admirer of Undset. But having made that known in my social circle, a man once tried to pick me up with the line, "Let's go up to my room and we can talk about KRISTIN LAVRANSDATTER."
THE MASTER OF HESTVIKEN is even better. Maybe it'll get a fresh traslation, too.
I'd like to see a cite for the claim of such high rates of Frenchwomen in religion, especially by 1815 when nuns previously turned out by the Revolution were desperately trying to establish new convents. It seems much, much too high. Furthermore, entering a religious order required a dowry which many women could not have afforded.
Yes Sandra I agree that The Master of Hestviken is good and probably better, it just doesn't have the same appeal for me as Kristin's story has, although I did read it twice on the trot and I don't think that English translation all that heavy, although perhaps a brush up wouldn't do it any harm. Undset herself considered the Master ... superior to Kristin which I'm sure you know. As for that about the percentages of French women in convents, yes it does seem high and I'll try to find where I saw it.
Regarding dowries, there must have been many admissions to convents where dowries were either watered down in value or dispensed with completely, especially if the novice was in reality there only to do hard labour and prayer. Catherine Laboure springs to mind - she was by all accounts from a poor family.
That pick up line really cracks me up. The guy involved would have been truly dismayed if you had gone with him and insisted on only discussing literature. When I was floating around in the dating scene I think I would have run a fast mile from anyone who would have fallen for a line like that
;-)
Stephen Sparrow
Steven F:
No - pre-conciliar liturgical traditions (which varied widely around Europe) and devotional traditions.
Many were suppressed to establish liturgical uniformity - the liturgy of Trent - for the first time. I've had no time to follow this up but the historians I read pointed out that many lay people were very unhappy about it and implied that open revolt was the result in some places. The Roman Rite was first published in France in 1615 - 45 years after the closing of the Council.
I wasn't focusing on liturgy at all so this just came up in passing.
Sherry W,
I wasn't talking specifically about liturgical traditions. But many liturgical traditions were retained because locals gathered documentary evidence to support their antiquity and Rome acquiesced.
But even supposing the suppression of certain liturgical and devotional traditions - how does that connect to the Berullian spirituality you're talking about? Couldn't it have developed within any one of these traditions?
Steven Florent
Stephen:
I wasn't talking about Berullian spirituality, which although already very influential, wasn't universal among the reformers (Frances de
Sales and Vincent de Paul both honored Berulle but essentially went their own ways.)
In any case, I haven't had chance to study Berulle's role in detail as of yet. This is early stages yet.
Sherry
Natalie Davis has written about rural Frenchmen stubbornly insisting on keeping their lay-run Confraternities and having large numbers of godparents rather than the mandated two.
Some quaint devotions to local saints still existed in 19th C France as described in PEASANTS INTO FRENCHMEN by Eugene Weber. (How quaint? Throwing balls of wool at the patron saint's statue mounted on the ceiling of the church until one hit the specfic body part requiring a cure.)Young priests got terribly frustrated trying to alter such things.
St. Catherine Laboure was a Daughter of Charity.Her community was set up quite differently from most.
"Young priests got terribly frustrated trying to alter such things."
I can well imagine their frustration. No wonder such "quaint" practices are still used to deride Catholicism whether it be from staunch Evangelical Protestantism or dogmatic atheism.
Regarding those percentages of French women as nuns, I've had a good hunt for it but no luck. I know the reference will turn up when I no longer need it (sigh). Actually I've been thinking about those ratios and I'm not sure if I've been dreaming but I think the real numbers were pre Revolution 1 in 15 and post 1 in 7.
Anyway, thank you Sandra.
Stephen Sparrow
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